Patrice Regnier remembers the priest taking her into the bedroom of
her parents' Winnetka house to hear her confession.

But there was no confession. Instead, she says, the priest sexually assaulted
her. He told her the crucifix had come to life and instructed him to do
what he was doing to her. He told her God was watching.

Regnier was 13, and the Roman Catholic priest was a friend of her devoutly
religious family who often said mass in their living room and stayed overnight.
The sexual abuse continued for about two years, she said.

[Photo captions: Jesuit priest and best-selling author the Rev. John
Powell, who Patrice Regnier accused Monday of sexual abuse. RIGHT: Powell,
a friend of Regnier's family, is shown in 1965 or 1966 in Regnier's home
with Regnier (right) and Regnier's sister.]

According to a lawsuit Regnier and three other women filed in a Cook
County court Monday, the Rev. John Powell, a Jesuit priest, longtime Loyola
University professor and best-selling author of Christian books, sexually
abused them between 1966 and 1973.

Powell, 77, is the author of two dozen books -- many of them mixing Catholic
theology and spiritual devotion with psychology and self-help -- that
have sold more than 15 million copies.

A well-regarded counselor and retreat master described by admirers as
"magnetic," Powell is now retired and living in a Jesuit convalescent
home near Detroit. He is in extremely frail health, said the Rev. Daniel
Flaherty, treasurer for the Chicago province of the Jesuits.

Powell, who was ordained in 1956 and taught at Loyola from 1967 until
his retirement in 1996, was unable to come to the phone at the convalescent
home Monday afternoon to speak with a reporter.

The three other women -- known only as "Jane Doe 49A-C" --
who filed suit with Regnier against Powell and the Jesuit order were college-aged
girls when they say the priest abused them. One of the women was a student
at Loyola. Another is Regnier's older sister.

An allegation of sexual abuse by Powell was reported to the Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of Chicago in April, said spokesman Jim Dwyer. When archdiocesan
investigators contacted the Jesuits to determine Powell's ministry status,
they were told he was "unable to perform priestly duties any more,"
Dwyer said.

Neither Flaherty nor an attorney for the Jesuits could say whether the
religious order had been aware of any allegations of abuse against Powell
before Monday.

However, correspondence between one of the Jane Does and Powell indicates
that his Jesuit superiors were aware of her allegation. After the woman
sent a letter to Loyola's faculty director in February 1983 -- recounting
a sexual encounter she says she had with Powell when she was 19 and home
on Christmas break -- Powell wrote back to her, saying his religious superior
had read her letter to him.

"I would like to invite you to write directly to me, to say whatever
you have been thinking or feeling. I think it would be good for both of
us," Powell wrote. Jeffrey Anderson, the woman's attorney, said she
never heard directly from the Jesuits.

Regnier, 50, a professional choreographer for a modern dance troupe in
New York City, met Powell when she was in seventh grade after her mother
went on a retreat led by the priest.

"One of my sisters wanted to become a cloistered nun, and [my mother]
was worried about that. So she brought [Powell] home," Regnier said.
"One time when he was taking off my shirt . . . he told me about
this nun who had opened her habit to poor children in Africa to give of
herself, that she was nursing these kids. . . . Father Powell reached
in and ripped out my soul."